Petracco unbound - a story of the Steel Wings home world

[Aqui]

Hello

I've had an idea mulling around in my head for some time, and I wasn't sure whether it would be suitable to realise that idea here on the Bolter and Chainsword, mainly as it deals with the Adeptus Mechanicus and their withdrawal from Petracco, a planet that eventually becomes the home world of my main DIY Chapter, the Steel Wings. The Ad Mech will feature heavily in it as will the Steel Wings themselves eventually. My hope is to fully flesh (pun intended) out the planet, give it some structure and basically use it to both act as a sounding board for ideas for my DIY's IA and to (hopefully) entertain Frater here.

As far as I know it won't break any of the boundaries set by the board, for as far as I know there are very few Ad Mech stories, so it's new territory for me (as is my Sisters story).

In any case, here is the first part. It's going to be repeated on my Word Press site as well.

The vessel made its final approach, banking lazily in answer to the planets' gravitational pull. Forces that would tear smaller ships apart were as nothing to this behemoth. Its target was ugly, stained a dull ochre from centuries of mining. Large dust storms to the north harried the Hive built into the mountainside. With a modicum of contempt, the ship refused to allow itself to fall in, the forces of the universe nothing more than an inconvenience. Powerful engines whined, slowing its descent, trajectory monitored by its crew. The ship was more than a kilometre long, its hull shaped like a splintered javelin. Dark and brooding in the shade of the planet, its purpose was mundane, collecting the raw materials plundered from far below.

The bridge was dimly lit, the occupants hardly requiring such luxuries as illumination and warmth. It was circular, in the manner of an amphitheatre and almost as large. Rows and rows of cogitator banks steeped further and further away from the centre, each given to a servitor, their chatter a cacophonous squeal of machine code and other arcane utterances. To one side, a bubble of adamantium and forcefields held an ethereal figure in check. That wisp of a woman, with the touch of the mutant, a stable mutant blessed by Him on Earth to be sure, but a mutant nevertheless, closed her third eye, shutting out what ought not to be seen. The empyrean and possibly beyond. Her impossibly thin frame shuddered, a terrible, unknowable breeze flittered across her soul.

Turning her attention to the command chair in the centre of this cavernous room, the woman had managed to activate the comm rune, her real eyes shrunken and useless.

"Lord Captain. We have succeeded." she warbled, her voice distorted by the ancient vox unit.

"Indeed." the Lord Captain did not attempt to hide the sarcasm in his voice. A man of few words, his utterance chilled the Navigator to the bone. The long journey through warp space had been fraught with peril, the hull of the ship already marked with damage from previous trips.

"I apologise for my error, Lord Captain," she continued, "It will not happen again."

"It shall not." the Lord Captain replied tersely. "Lieutenant. Remove her from the capsule."

The words sunk in, and Navigator first class Elen knew what fate had in store for her.

She hoped it would be quick.

Ignoring the removal of the mutant from his bridge, the Lord Captain turned his baleful eyes to the hol screen. The image of the ships destination flickered. A world owned by the Adeptus Mechanicus, one that was polluted beyond belief, poisonous clouds, heavy with waste chemicals sunk to the planets' surface. The natives, a dour and taciturn people, were split, taking refuge in the titanic structures that cling to the various mountain ranges that rise high above. Those structures were originally built for the nobility. To look down on those they ruled. No longer, for there have been no noble families on that planet for over a millennia.

The Adeptus Mechanicus ruled here. The Omnissiah was worshiped, adored, although there was a grudging nod to Him on Earth too. Quotas were maintained with an inhuman rigidity, failure was not an option. Logic was the maxim, emotion the pariah. Hard work was rewarded with more hard work.

Laziness was met with death.

Welcome to Petracco.

"The Aratro Stellarum approaches, my Lord."

Magos Gurlain didn't turn to address his subordinate. He knew full well the status of the ship now in orbit far above. His cyber brain had synched with the cogitators aboard the behemoth over twenty minutes ago. He knew that the ship had sustained a fair amount of damage, and had already bypassed resources to enact repairs. Ten shuttles were making their way through atmo for that task. Another Magos would not have been concerned with such superficial concerns. Even Gurlain himself would not have been usually. But today was not a usual day.

Today was the day that would change the fate of Petracco, forever.

Gurlain finally finished his task and looked at his junior. An ancient man, although the term was now a loose one at best. He had stopped being a mere man some two hundred and eighty years ago. There was barely any flesh left. Even he was unsure how much. Illogical, irrational thought is wasteful, he chided himself. His junior, however was still mainly flesh, something that unsettled Gurlain intensely. It was not the other mans' fault. He had started his own journey with the Omnissiah a mere forty years previous, a Lexmatic of good standing, if a little too curious. It was to be...expected. Flesh questioned everything. Even so, the fact make him pity the man. To embrace the machine, and shed the prison of a slowly rotting body. Not only was it logical, it was holy, a pure expression of dedication to the Omnissiah.

"You have something further to report?"

The other man shook slightly, his augmetic sight glowing dimly as if lowering his eyes in the Magos' presence in deference.

"None Magos Gurlain." the subordinate paused, "I..."

"Yes?" Gurlain knew the question before he asked.

"Why?"

Gurlain chuckled, a low growl his vox caster could not hope to imitate properly, but attempted nontheless. It was unnerving, for a sense of humour was without logic or purpose. His full attention fixed on the servant now, his mechatendrils irritable despite his own curiosity.

"Why indeed? Have you not considered that this latest action is naught but an extension of pure logic? That when a planet such as this one is expended, that steps are taken to ensure that none are wasted in a fruitless search for that which does not exist?"

"But the surveys indicate that the petro-chemicals alone are enough to satisfy quotas for another century, possibly two!" blurted the

Lexmatic.

"Indeed."

"Then, why..?"

"Know this Marvallo, whilst you are correct, there are greater prizes that warrant our attention elsewhere. We may return to Petracco. We may not, but my decision is final. The Fabricator-General is in agreement. We will withdraw. We will seek out our new prize. Petracco will no longer be under our jurisdiction."

"What of the natives? They have served the Omnissiah well. Without our support they will perish!"

Magos Gurlain stepped forward, his bulk hissing as motors and pistons clanked and whining to comply.

"They will survive by their own wits. Their own ingenuity. If they have learned nothing from our teachings by now, then they never will. Now, no more. Return to your duties."

Bowing low, knowing that he had was lucky not to be reduced to a servitor for speaking out of turn, Marvallo left the Solitarium. The peoples of this world were to be abandoned, their lives no longer of any worth. He had found scraps of evidence that in darker times, the Mechanicus would destroy a world than leave anything left to scavengers or Xenos to take. Facts that he had taken great pains to keep to himself.

He wasn't sure which fate was worse.

[Aqui]

I've been wanting to add to this for a very long time, but could not work out a way of doing it. I'm still not sure I have it, but I wanted to get out of the writing rut I'm in at present. Seeing Lady Canoness' new story kinda gave me enough of a kick up the arse to make me want to try, so here is a little something.

 

It's late (where I am at least), I'm tired, so there might be parts that make little sense, and I have no doubt that this might not be me at my best.

 

But it's a start.

 

 

Part 2:

 

Manufactorum worker Agapito had finished his work shift and wearily made his way back to his hab

unit. He had followed exactly the same routine every day for his entire life. It required no more conscious thought than it did to breathe. At fifty years standard, he still had many years of work left, before succumbing to any of the various illnesses and diseases prevalent on Petracco. There was no such thing as retirement. You worked until you could no longer. What came after was something no one wanted to think about...

 

Entering the small unit that his family was allocated, he mumbled greetings to his children, his wife tending to their youngest child, a girl of eighteen months standard. His grey eyes softened a little at the sight, but was saddened as the oft re-occurring thought came to the fore in his mind.

None of his children would ever have a childhood.

 

No one on Petracco had for as long as anyone could ever remember. He knew that his great, great, great grandfather started work at fourteen, manning a station at one of the many petro-chemical refineries over at Adelina Prime. Back then, the need to educate children in anything other than operating machinery was less than nothing. The planets' overlords quota was unrelenting, their grip upon the ruling body of the planet, if they could be called such was so total, so complete, that even the ruling classes were pressed into service.

 

There are no noble houses on Petracco anymore. Most had died within months of the Decree, their fat, pampered bodies unable to work hard enough. It was almost amusing at first that the so called great and good, were finally put to work. There were a lot of them. But, over the months that followed, it seemed that as they died, they would be spared the endless suffering and misery the planet and it's natives would endure. The Adeptus Mechanicus had arrived all those years ago, their promises of untold riches the catalyst to the entire population being held under thrall. There were riches, but the Mechanicus kept them for themselves.

 

 

The planet's surface changed greatly over the millennia. One thousand years of occupation had seen the lush, fertile lands turn to polluted wastelands, a smog of toxic fumes choked the ground, so much so that no one had actually seen the soil in over seven hundred years. The workers took to the mountains, climbing higher and higher to avoid the clouds, until eventually they reached the very domiciles the rich and powerful lived in. It was such a novelty to live in those quarters, but it soon wore off. A pressing need for space resulted in grand works of art being melted down for base materials, walls torn down to make way for smaller and smaller living spaces. Families grew in size over the generations, a result of high death rates in the young, and the Mechanicus's desire to gain an ever increasing workforce.

 

In the end, something had to give. And it did.

 

A revolt led by a small group who had taken upon themselves to try to make the Machine worshipers leave, had stirred enough ill feeling to gather others to their cause. But it wasn't enough. In response to the riots that broke out in every part of Petracco, the Adeptus Mechanicus ordered their body guards, the Skitarii to round up four in every ten. And slaughtered them. There were no further thoughts of rebellion, no thoughts of freedom.

 

Outside of their work, Petraccans had rarely any thoughts at all.

 

Before the arrival of the Adeptus Mechanicus, Petracco was a relatively rare planet within the Imperium. There was rarely any trouble in the local systems, or indeed on the planet itself, each sovereign nation kept to themselves. It was rare for individuals to travel beyond the borders of their country, the instinctively insular mindset keeping all but the most curious at home. But it was most famous for arts and science. Imperial scholars have taken the view in general that the Adeptus Mechanicus took a dim view on the former interests and were horrified at the later, the especially harsh punishments levelled, a way of weeding out heretical thoughts of research and study.

 

It seemed that it succeeded.

 

Until today. Worker Agapito did not know that everything he had known would change irrevocably forever, and that he would help shape the remnants of his world.